Opinion
Column

Militant Buddhism on rise

In this Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, file photo, newly arrived Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar look out from a madrasa window that they used as a shelter in Shahparirdwip, Bangladesh. AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe, File

The resurgence of religious politics is a troubling feature of our times. And it appears on the radar screens in many corners of the world. There is Islamist extremism in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, Christian fundamentalism in the United States and Africa, Jewish irredentism in Israel, and Hindu nationalism in India. All of these have gained the attention of attentive readers of newspapers and journals of all sorts. What has been subject to far less scrutiny is the phenomenon of militant or violent Buddhism.

The very idea of dealing with this topic may seem counterintuitive to many readers. After all, Buddhists are widely viewed as highly spiritual people committed to peace and non-violence. Many Buddhists are vegetarians because they refuse to contemplate the slaughter of animals for human consumption. Many even refuse to kill flies, mosquitoes and other insects. The world's best-known Buddhist, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, is seen as the embodiment of enlightenment, intellectual dialogue and the rational search for peace and understanding. He is widely respected by people of all faiths and none at all.

And yet there is another side to the story. The emergence of what might be called militant or politically organized Buddhism. The first manifestation of this occurred in South Vietnam in the early 1960s. At the time, the country was ruled by the Diem family, who were Catholics. Their government was both despotic and corrupt. When the time came for a popular uprising against the Diems, it was led by Buddhist monks. Not only did the monks lead the street demonstrations, many also set themselves on fire and died as a way of demonstrating their commitment and determination. And, of course, this display of Buddhist militancy was successful in bringing about the overthrow of the Diem regime.

A more recent example concerns the civil war that took place in Sri Lanka between 1982 and 2009. This war pitted the Sinhalese Buddhist majority against the Tamil Hindu minority. The Tamils who felt that they were victims of widespread discrimination at the hands of the majority started an armed campaign to secure either greater autonomy or outright independence for their region of the country. Their main fighting body, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, did not only confine themselves to conventional military tactics, but also launched a long series of brutal and bloody terrorist attacks. The counterattacks by the Sinhalese security forces, composed mostly of Buddhists, were equally bloody and brutal. The killing of Tamil civilians and the burning to the ground of Tamil villages were part of their standard modus operandi. This all culminated in the final victory of the government forces in 2009, in the course of which it is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 unarmed Tamil civilians were slaughtered.

Still more recently, there have been the events in Myanmar, formerly Burma. There the Buddhist majority has long been at loggerheads with the country's ethnic and religious minorities, which experience various forms of discrimination. The most troubling of all have been the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group of South Asian origin who have been living in Myanmar for some 200 years. When the Rohingya protested against their treatment at the hands of the Buddhist majority, the government arbitrarily revoked their citizenship. When a group of armed Rohingya launched an attack against police posts in August 2017, the government decided on massive retaliation by the largely Buddhist security forces. The operation they launched was brutal and devastating, with thousands of Rohingyas being killed and dozens of villages being burned to the ground. This led some 500,000 Rohingyas to flee the country over the border into Bangladesh. There they find themselves living a miserable existence as refugees in one of the poorest countries in Asia. The actions of the Myanmar government and its security forces have been condemned by the United Nations as a clear-cut case of ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic and religious minorities living in Buddhist majority countries need to be constantly on their guard. Buddhist militants can be just as violent and blood thirsty as Islamist extremists, despite appearances to the contrary.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellowin the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen's University.